SlideShow

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT)

The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere and among the largest in the world. It has a hexagonal primary mirror array 11 metres across, comprising 91 individual 1.2m hexagonal mirrors. SALT has a redesigned optical system resulting in a larger field of view and effective collecting area.

What is the SKA?

The SKA will be a revolutionary radio telescope made of thousands of receivers linked together across an area the size of a continent. The total collecting area of all the SKA receivers combined will be approximately one square kilometre, making the SKA the largest and most sensitiveradio telescope ever built.

Without E=MC2 GPS Would Malfunction

The satellite navigation in your car or on your phone relies on a series of geostationary satellites to pinpoint your location, exchanging data using radio waves. Because of the theory of relativity, the speed at which the satellites’ onboard clocks tick is around 38,000 nanoseconds faster than clocks on the ground. Every time data is sent to the receiving device, a calculation must be applied to correct the timings to within the required 20-30 nanosecond accuracy.

You Could Be A Walking H-Bomb

The First Law of Thermodynamics holds that in any situation, the total amount of energy in will equal the exact same amount of energy out. As well as meaning that you can’t create energy out of nothing, this law means that you also can not destroy energy. So what happens to the energy that you put in your body? The short answer is most of it is stored in your body as an average of 7×1018 joules, if released all at once, would have the same power as 30 hydrogen bombs.

Relativity Makes Space Travellers Younger

Both velocity and gravity have an effect on the speed of time; the higher they are, the slower time passes. Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) (who are in reduced gravity compared to people on Earth but travelling at increased speed around it) experience time more slowly, at a rate of roughly 1 second ‘lost’ every 747 days.